Retailer facilities such as large department stores and warehouses and distribution centers associated therewith receive, stock, and transport thousands, if not millions, of units of consumer products. An individual stock keeping unit or item of a consumer product typically includes a label attached thereto or printed thereon indicating the identifying code of the consumer product. For example, a bottle of a typical shampoo product displayed on a sales floor of a retailer facility typically includes a label including a uniform product code (UPC) thereon that generally indicates a company code associated with the manufacturer of the shampoo bottle and a product code associated with the shampoo bottle.
A disadvantage of such labels is that the UPC does not include any information distinguishing an individual unit of the shampoo product on the sales floor at a retailer facility from an identical unit of the shampoo product found in a storage bin or on a delivery truck going the retailer facility. In other words, when a worker at a retailer facility scans such a conventional label on an item found loose on the floor at the retailer facility, the worker would not know whether this item was dropped by a worker tasked with bringing this item to the sales floor to be displayed or to the stock room to be stored. Given that the very large number of items handled at a typical retailer facility on a daily basis, it is not unusual for various items to be misplaced, and the conventional labels do not enable a worker to determine the origin and/or the intended destination of a misplaced item, or to determine which worker last handled the misplaced item.
In addition, conventional UPC-based labels are subject to variation associated with errors in worker tasks performed with respect to the items and/or inaccuracies in packing the items to be delivered to a retail sales facility at a vendor facility. Although this variation is managed through an audit process of a percentage of cases, such an audit process is subject to inaccuracies and does not ensure that each unit of a product at a retail sales facility is accounted for.
Elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common, well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. Certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. The terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.